China will launch its lunar orbiter Chang'e 1 to explore the moon's environment and study the thickness of its soil by the end of 2007, according to a senior Chinese space expert in India.

Sun Huixian, deputy chief engineer at the Center for Space Science and Applied Research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said Beijing also has plans to send two more unmanned missions by 2010.

He made the comment on the sidelines of an international conference in the northern Indian city of Udaipur.

The spacecraft will carry a payload of 100 kilograms including a lunar altimeter, gamma X-ray spectrometer, microwave radiometer and space environment monitor system.

The altimeter will measure the distance between the spacecraft and the moon surface at a given point of time while the spectrometer will study the radioactivity of the moon.

The five-day International Conference on Exploration and Utilization of the Moon ends Friday. More than 200 delegates from 16 countries are participating in the conference which is expected to come out with a declaration calling for cooperation in space.

(CRI November 26, 2004)